


Taking it back

by WahlBuilder



Category: The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Politics, Post-Canon, standing and talking, twenty headcanons in a trench coat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 06:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19371433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: The civil unrest in Ophir has reached its breaking point.Anton's city is in chaos, but Anton won't let his people be destroyed, or ignored.





	Taking it back

The nails and bullets whine around him, chipping at concrete and showering his jacket with dust. His shoulder blades ache from pressing into a fallen column. His heart is pounding so fast and heavy, and his blood is singing.

It’s happening. Finally. So many years—leading to this moment. And the next. And the next.

He’s counting the whining bullets and nails.

An explosion booms in the distance—then a screech of tracks.

He glances at Misha who is in the same position behind another part of the column, his chains wrapped loosely over the left arm, a short nailgun in the other hand.

“What good did I ever do in my life?”

Misha smiles. His smile is stained with blood. “You didn’t let my daughter starve.”

Anton grins in reply. Yes. This is good. This is enough.

“The Forty-Sixth and the Twilight Alley are blocked, Boss.”

“Good. That’ll teach them to deploy rovers on our streets.”

The count runs to a halt.

Anton licks his lips, checks his own gun. Idiots.

“I am the dirt of the streets, I am the screams at night, I am the dim lights, the fist in the dark, the moan of a whore. This is _my_ city, and these are _my_ people. You have no claim on them.”

He pushes himself up and turns to face the music.

***

He isn’t dressed fancy: his Vory jacket, a white shirt, his sturdy pants and soft shoes made for scaling the city—his work clothes.

Viktor takes off the fighting ring in the shape of a cat’s head, takes Anton’s hand, and slides it on. Though Anton used to wear it on his middle finger, it was resized to fit on Viktor’s more slim fingers, but it fits on Anton’s pinky pretty well, near the simple broad band on his ring finger.

“You are going to a fight,” Viktor explains, holding Anton’s hand. “And you are going to win.”

Anton looks into his eyes, then puts a hand on the nape of his neck, and they kiss, heedless of any audience. What do they have to hide? They are outcasts. Abundance has no power over them anymore.

Anton steps into the ring, and the Assembly goes very quiet.

He doesn’t go to the dais and microphones. He doesn’t need them (he spent weeks with Dandolo, rehearsing it, making use of the strange acoustics of Noctis and the Caravanserail, Dandolo teaching him how to whisper so that everyone heard).

Rather, he steps in front of the dais, eyeing it critically. He saw it on sketches. He saw it in reality during the spectacle that was Viktor’s trial. He hates it.

So he turns his back on it, and leans onto it. Takes a cigarette and lights it up, and feels all eyes on the tip. He inhales the smoke of the strong tobacco, and breathes out through his nose.

“Greetings, you bastards.”

The silence whines like the bullets.

“You deployed the Army on the streets of Ophir, against citizens of Ophir. You ordered people on the threat of punishment to shoot at their own.” He takes another drag, for effect and to get himself under control. His rage might sweep this cavernous chamber and turn this esteemed gathering into ashes.

They aren’t looking down on him. _He_ is looking down on them.

“You’ve brought war to _our_ home. You will never recover.”

“ _Your_ home, Rogue?” some fucker dares to say.

Anton quirks a brow. Yes. Semantics. They _love_ this. But he had Henry and Zhenya do a little research. “Eighty percent of Ophir is the Slums, Underworks and Outer Rings. And there is a small thing, though of course I’m not a Lawman,” he raises a hand and bends his head. Theatrics. He rehearsed them with Vik, too. “But, that small thing. It’s called the Settlers Clause.”

The Assembly erupts. He basks in their outrage, but a few pieces, he snatches out:

“Nonsense!”

“Arrest him!”

“Who is he to—”

“Ophir would never—”

He feels his own face twisting, lips pulling from his teeth. _“I am Ophir!”_

He looks the instantly silent Assembly around. Seated high, they are looking down at him. The amphitheater where they play their filthy lies and condemn their puppets. He can crush them like nothing

“ _I_ am Ophir. Most of those living in the Slums and Underworks and Outer Rings are Rogues. _My_ people. I’ve governed Ophir for fifteen _fucking_ years while you all thought it was yours. I managed food shortages made by _your_ design, I managed medical care, sanitation, fought off drugs flood on the streets, sex trafficking, failing construction that you used just so you could gorge on public money; I extorted taxes from corporate filth, the taxes that rightfully belonged to my districts, I ruined ASC patrols during the curfew... You sit here like a canyon tick, spreading your feelers, sticking them into everything you can reach and liquefying it so you could feed on watery porridge.

“Ophir is _mine_. It belongs to _my_ people, and I am not giving it to you. Each and every one of you who leeched on my city,” he sweeps the chamber with his hand, and leans forward, and some recoil away from him, “I will ruin you. I will tear you apart and throw the remains out of the dome where not even moles will feed on you. You have corrupted the Source, you have abused so many lives— _all_ of you are complicit.”

He takes another drag, taps the ash off onto the floor. “An interim government will be formed, until the voting commences on September Nine. The diplomatic exchange with Aurora will be resumed: we will politely ask for exchange of POWs, and invite engineers to reconstruct Ophir. We will negotiate a restructuring of our debt to the Alliance and offer some of our mines as part of repayment. Abundance…” He raises his voice over murmurs: “Abundance _has_ to cooperate with others. Or I’m blowing the shields.”

It feels like he’s blown the Assembly Chamber.

Good. Finally, something shocks them and forces them to think.

“What do you mean… Mr Rogue?”

 _Mister_.

He runs his tongue over his teeth. “I mean exactly that, _Mister_  Lawman. If you try to do something stupid—like deciding that the law doesn’t apply to you—I’m blowing the shields over the Inner Rings and the Source.”

“But that would destroy the underlying structure over the Outer Rings, too!”

Yes. And his Ophir would be unlivable until repairs. But a full Noctian fleet, Valleian ostrich riders, Alliance rovers and trains are waiting to get his people away for the time, until Ophir is restored.

But he has to maintain the image, doesn’t he. The terrible, awful, the absolute _worst_ Anton Rogue. Tremble before him: he will eat you alive.

“Oh, and a couple more things,” he notes as though an afterthought. “A referendum will be proposed for Greenhope. Those people will decide their own fate. And Mancers are not Abundance property anymore, and hey, if they decide to sue for unlawful detainment, torture, et-ce-te-ra,” he smiles quickly. “You better start thinking of good excuses. The people would love a good spectacle.”

“You are a monster.”

He flicks the stub down and clenches his left hand, the fighting ring heavy. “ _I_ am a monster? I will drag each one of you fuckers onto the streets and throw you to the people you have eaten nearly to the bones! Be thankful I’m not yet in the mood to do just that.” He closes his eyes to get himself under control. He feels dirty, not from the street debris and the fight, but from being here and breathing the same air as these pigs. His ribs are aching (because of course it’s always the ribs), his head throbs from rage-induced migraine, and he’s been running on fumes of sleep and doesn’t expect any sleep in the days to come.

But he’s not alone. And he’s doing it for his family. He will do anything for his family.

It’s that his family is the whole of Ophir, now, not counting the tendrils extending outside Abundance borders.

He looks at the murmuring, shouting, swaying human filth in front of him. “Are you fucking done? I have shit to do. These are not negotiable terms, by the way—it’s an outline of the future that awaits all of us. You are welcome to run for the various posts, and of course, as citizens of our glorious corporation, you have the duty to vote—unless the court decides your crimes are enough that you cannot be trusted with that duty.”

The cigarette is still smoldering on the floor. He stubs it out. His shoes have been in worse, today.

He turns to leave.

“A question, if I may, Mr. Rogue?”

“Yes?”

He knows her. A Worker, she’s made her way into the Lower Assembly by sheer tenacity. He expects her to run for the Dowser on the program of workers rights.

“What did you do to Viktor?”

Not “Viktor Watcher”, not “Colonel Viktor” or “Colonel Watcher”. Abundance has erased him.

Anton grins—oh, the sweet, sweet call to stir up the storm even more—and lifts his left hand, turns it slightly so the light glints on the band on his ring finger. “Married him.”


End file.
